in reply to Is There A Better Way?

What you're looking for is sprintf. For example:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; print "Enter ID Number: "; chomp(my $input = <STDIN>); die "Not a number!" if ($input =~ /\D/); $input = sprintf("%011d",$input); print "input: $input\n";


Cheers,
Shendal